The Shoe Museum in
Street
A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, ...
,
Somerset
( en, All The People of Somerset)
, locator_map =
, coordinates =
, region = South West England
, established_date = Ancient
, established_by =
, preceded_by =
, origin =
, lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset
, lord_ ...
, England exhibited shoes dating from the
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
era to the present day. The museum closed on 27 September 2019.
It showed the history of the Clark family and their company
C. & J. Clark and its connection with the development of shoemaking in the town. The Clarks started making slippers, shoes and boots in the town in the 1820s and the company grew, introducing mechanised processes in the 1860s.
Production continued until after 2000 when it was moved off-shore, using third party factories, predominantly located in Asia. In the 19th century, in line with the family’s Quaker values, the capital was also extended beyond the factory to benefit social initiatives in Street: a school was founded so that young men and women could combine working in the factory with continuing their education, a
theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
was opened, a library was built, along with an open-air swimming pool, known as Greenbank, and town hall. The company still has its headquarters in Street, behind a frontage which includes the clock tower and water tower, In 1993 the redundant factory buildings were converted to form
Clarks Village.
The museum started in 1951, but was expanded in 1974.
It had examples of shoes from the 200 years of the companies history. The museum also included a display of machinery used in footwear production, and a selection of shop display showcards from the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s, and television advertisements.
The museum closed to the public on 27 September 2019, and its artefacts will be transferred to the nearby Alfred Gillett Trust.
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See also
*Concealed shoes
Concealed shoes hidden in the fabric of a building have been discovered in many European countries, as well as in other parts of the world, since at least the early modern period. Independent researcher Brian Hoggard has observed that the locati ...
References
External links
The Shoe Museum
(archived 16 July 2015)
Alfred Gillett Trust
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shoe Museum, The
Museums in Somerset
Shoe museums
Street, Somerset
Grade II listed museum buildings